Caoimhe Evelyn Ring

Caoimhe is a DPhil Candidate in Law at St Hilda's College under the supervision of Professor Robert Burrell. Her doctoral thesis examines whether intellectual property (IP) rights impede the diffusion of climate-friendly technologies. This research focuses on discussions of crisis innovation and the resurging popularity of mission-oriented innovation policies in the wake of COVID-19 vaccines programmes to understand whether such dirigiste policies make a blueprint for the climate crisis. Drawing on historical case studies, she examines the law and political economy of IP rights in emergencies, developing an empirical account of the impact of IP on renewable energy technology diffusion. She has written on this topic for the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology (2021) and has recently published on the relationship between science and technology studies and Socio-Legal Studies (CSLS, 'Frontiers' 2023).

She is interested in law and political economy scholarship, as well as critical perspectives on the role of science and technology in knowledge production and its impacts on the governance of the climate crisis. Caoimhe is an Associate Editor at the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal and she is co-convenor of the Intellectual Property Law Discussion Group  and the Law and Political Economy (LPE) Discussion Group (2021–2023). She has held posts as Principal Investigator on commissioned research on the impact of IP on access to climate-friendly technologies in lower-income nations (2022-23), a Tutor in Contract Law at Merton College, University of Oxford (2022) and as an Associate Lecturer in International Intellectual Property Law at Oxford Brookes University (2022). She has contributed to Politico (2022), and various calls for views, including the UK Intellectual Property Office call for views on artificial intelligence (2020 & 2021).

Caoimhe read law at King's College London (2016-2019). Prior to joining the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre in 2020, she acted as a research assistant to Professor Emily Hudson (King’s College London) for Drafting Copyright Exceptions: From the Law in Books to the Law in Action (Cambridge University Press 2019).